Video editor of “ARY News” television channel was injured in attacked by militants of Islamic State (IS) on January 13, in Islamabad the capital of Pakistan.

The attackers on a motorcycle hurled a hand grenade and fired shots at the office. The security guard tried to catch the attackers but not succeeded. Omar Hayat, a Non-Linear Editor received head injury in the explosion. Window panes and glass door of the office were smashed.

The attackers left behind notes in English and Urdu that stated that the attack was by Islamic State Khurasan and was the reaction to the coverage of “ Zarb-e-Azb” operation by the Pakistan armed forces against militant groups. (The notes are attached)

The pamphlets read “Islamic State Wilayah Khurasan accepts the responsibility of this attack on the media,” and warned “If the media continues to hide and distort facts and serves as stenographers of ISPR (military’s public relations department), taking dictates and amplifying one-sided propaganda, then such a slave media is merely in extension of ISPR and hence we will treat it as a military institution and all its personnel as soldiers of the apostate Napak (Unclean) Army. So do not proclaim this as an attack on journalistic freedom.”

This was the third attack in less than two months on television channels by Islamic State Khurasan. The first was an attack by hand grenade at Faisalabad bureau office of “Dunya News” television channel on November 20, 2015 and injured two staffers. The second was on December 1, 2015 when IS militants hurled a hand grenade at Lahore office of “Din News” television channel and injured a staffer and two police constables.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took the notice of the attack at the television channel and directed the authorities to conduct an investigation and to provide security “ARY News”.

Pakistan Press Foundation

ISLAMABAD: Terror revisited the federal capital on Wednesday evening when two persons riding a motorcycle hurled hand-grenade at the office of ARY News in Sector F-7/4, causing serious injuries to the driver of DSNG van.

Two persons riding a motorbike entered the office of the news channel from Service Road adjacent to Margalla College for Girls, F-7/4 and hurled hand-grenade/cracker at the channel office. In a bid to intercept the attacker, security guard, Umar, rushed to the attackers but they resorted to aerial firing.

Fear gripped the area after the explosion of the hand-grenade and staff of the channel remained stuck in their office as firing also followed the grenade explosion. Some eyewitnesses didn’t confirm the gun shooting however indicated that gun fire was shot by the security guards who rushed to the attackers to nab them but motorcyclists who intended to enter the office resorted to firing and rushed away from the scene.

The motorcyclists also dropped a letter at the site of the attack, which reads, “Responsibility of this attack is on the media. Our message is simple and clear. Stop siding with the army and government of Pakistan in their global crusade against Islam under the banner of Operation Zarb-e-Azb, by concealing facts. Stop concealing the operation and transgression of this army in the form of missing persons, mass arrests and torture of Ahle Sunnah and relatives of the accused. Stop concealing the numerous cases of arson, burglary and kidnap for ransom, from defenceless Ahle Sunnah belonging to weak backgrounds, by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), in the name of operation against terrorists. Stop covering-up the scale of destruction and massacres done through bombardment in Tribal Areas and Balochistan by the army and plight of IDPs. If the media continues to hide and distort facts and serves as stenographers of ISPR, taking dictates and amplifying one-sided propaganda, such a slave media is merely an extension of ISPR and hence we will treat it as a military institution and all its personnel as soldiers of the army. So do not proclaim this as an attack on journalism freedom.”

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif denouncing grenade attack at the channel office directed Islamabad IGP Islamabad and DCO to reach the site of the attack. Islamabad additional deputy commissioner said that security of media houses in the twin cities had been tightened and overall security of the twin cities had also been put on high alert.

As per electronic media reports ISIS (Daesh)-Afghanistan has claimed responsibility of grenade attack at the channel office. Political, journalists as well as social activists across the country condemned the attack.

The News

The most recent addition is the Radio Khilafat station of the Islamic State (IS).

The station has traumatised locals not only in the tribal areas, but as far as the settled area of Charsadda near Mohmand Agency.

“They’ve been running all sorts of propaganda,” a resident of Charsadda tells The Express Tribune. “Most of the content is a call for recruitment.”

The battle for the airwaves in the northern parts of Pakistan is nothing new, but an IS-backed radio station is. A concentration of various militant outfits formed their basis on the areas bordering with Afghanistan.

The Khalifat Radio and a station being run by a banned outfit have been running their campaigns from across the border with intermittent transmissions, threatening the local population. The frequencies may have varied, but the messages stay the same.

A senior security official says the radios are being run from three main areas in Afghanistan—Nazyan, Archeen in Nangarhar and Kunar. “The radio transmitter is at a height of more than 7,000 feet which makes the reception area wider,” he reveals. “That is why the transmission can be heard in areas far [and wide] even though [the stations] are operated from within Afghan territory.”

Not only Pakistan, but the US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, in his unannounced visit to Kabul on Friday, had warned of “nests of IS” in Nangarhar. His views were earlier corroborated by General John Campbell who leads international forces in Afghanistan. He said IS militants had gathered over the last six months in Nangarhar and Kunar.

The developments on the Durand Line are not isolated incidents. In its previous maneuvers, the IS had managed to attract a faction of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan fighters who pledged allegiance to IS. The latter is now helping these fighters take on the Afghan Taliban.

A former jihadi and current politician in Afghanistan says one reason for this could be the fact that they all swore allegiance to Mullah Omar who is no longer there. “How else would you explain the same people fighting against each other?” he asks. “If IS manages to capture Afghan Taliban, they slaughter them,” he explains. “What they did to locals in Nangarhar is another story.”

He says in the absence of an administration, locals are leaking information to the Afghan Taliban to counter IS after a five-year-old child was killed along with his family.

Another security official in Pakistan says it is easier for militants to setup an FM transmitter as little equipment is required. He adds the presence of people affiliated with banned outfits who escaped the military operation is a recurrent problem.

However, he says these recent developments have not gone unnoticed. Meanwhile, officials in Pakistan have been quick to deny any radio transmissions from high profile militant commanders on its airwaves.

Express Tribune

According to the local media, the radio broadcast can be heard in Halimzai Tehsil of Mohmand Agency.

The brodcast begins after Maghrib and lasts for an hour. First there is a sermon that lasts for 30 to 40 minutes. Rest of the broadcast consists of naats and Jihadi anthems.

Pakistan Today

“Press freedom … is in retreat in all five continents,” said the RSF 2015 World Press Freedom Index.

The head of the RSF told the media that the deterioration is linked to a range of factors, “with information wars and actions by non-state groups acting as news despots”.

Take a look: Pakistan ranked 159 out of 180 countries in press freedom: report

Examples of such groups are Boko Haram and the Islamic State, as well as criminal organisations in Italy and South America.

Further, several countries fell in the rankings as compared to last year, for example the US. The latter’s drop was in part because it launched a “war on information” against whistleblowers including WikiLeaks and others, while Venezuela’s record worsened since the National Bolivarian Guard fired on “clearly identified” journalists covering protests.

Pakistan, where the threats faced by journalists and the constraints on reporting are a dirty, if open, secret, was ranked at 139 of the 180 countries evaluated.

That said, however, some of the positions awarded are curious, and raise questions about the methodology and logic used in ranking countries. Qatar, for example, like several other Gulf countries, is not exactly known for reporting freely on its internal politics. However, it weighed in at 115.

Placed higher were the Central African Republic (110) and Kuwait (90), which, again, can by no means be considered places where there is any degree of freedom to report.

In fact, the ranking exercise falls into the trap of counting statistics rather than analysing the actual situation in its full context, especially in developing countries. In several parts of the world, the growing levels of violence against journalists actually provides a clue to increasing media freedoms since the state or other parties hit back only when there is reportage to resent.

Pakistan is a good example of this: during earlier periods of severe restrictions on the media, violence against journalists was less frequent because information was so tightly controlled that much of it went unreported.

As the scope of the media has expanded, so too has the resistance to open debate. It is a pity that a number of journalism’s watchdog bodies have failed to account for these nuances, for they are of vital importance in the complex web of media repression.

Daily Dawn